An Inconvenient Marriage
by Colubrina
Summary: Draco's been sitting in jail, waiting for his one-way trip to Azkaban after the Battle of Hogwarts. It isn't a place that breeds hope so he doesn't pay much attention when Ginny Weasley shows up insisting he was a hero.He knows he wasn't &,besides, people are only released into the custody of non-Death Eater spouses. It's not going to work. Then she claims they're married. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Draco was slouched against the back wall of the cell when he heard her. They'd had to put him in a cell by himself because the other Death Eaters blamed his family for their loss and saw him as a convenient target. He was alone, bruised and hungrier than he could ever remember being but no one was physically hurting him anymore so he'd settled down to wait for either a trial - unlikely - or for the victors to just shove him into Azkaban without one.

"It has taken me three months to get this far," the voice said. "Don't you even dare try to tell me that one more form is out of order."

Draco catalogued the voice: Weasley, Ginevra; youngest in his least favorite indigent family; blood traitor; pretty; wielded a mean hex, something he'd been privileged to see multiple times that final year at Hogwarts, though never been on the end of one. He wondered why she was here but didn't bother to get off the hard bench to peer down the corridor and find out.

Merlin, he wanted a cigarette.

A cigarette, a pain potion, a visit with a mediwitch. Hell, he thought, go for broke, Draco, dream big. How about a ticket out of her and a clean bed in a flat somewhere? It wasn't as if he were going to get any of them, so he might as well indulge in fantasy. Ginny Weasley was still arguing with whatever unfortunate had been stationed at the door to the hall of the Ministry where Death Eaters had been stashed while the powers-that-now-were tried to figure out what to do with them.

"Miss Weasley," the man said, "I understand your concerns - "

"You do _not,"_ she said. Draco found himself impressed by how well she could project her voice. She was making sure every single person in this corridor, and probably the next, could hear her. "He saved my life multiple times that year with the Carrows. He protected me. He - "

"That's great," the man said. He sounded bored as he droned out the same spiel Draco had heard every time someone came to try to bail out one of the Death Eaters with the monotonic cadence of memorized jargon. "I'm sure he's a bona fide hero, despite that pesky little snake design on his arm, but there are no exceptions except for spouses. Death Eaters can be remanded to the custody of a spouse if said spouse had no connections to the - "

"We got married." Ginny interrupted him. "That last year. We said the vows in private. It was a secret thing, war-time romance."

"And you didn't tell anyone?"

Draco began to have a very bad feeling about what was about to happen, a feeling that was confirmed when what he supposed counted as a guard hauled himself up off his stool and plodded down to stand opposite Draco, outside the bars of his cell. "Your wife's here," he said. "Surprise."

Draco looked at Ginny. If he didn't know they'd never spoken more than two words to one another he'd have thought she'd never been happier to see anyone in her life. She pushed past the guard and reached her fingers through the bars and, never one to miss a cue, Draco hurried up and caught them in his hand. "Ginny," he said with all the sincerity a man raised by skilled liars could muster. "I've been so worried; are you okay?"

"Never mentioned it," the guard said. "Never mentioned her at all, really."

Draco flicked a glance at his captor. Dull grey robes and a stomach gone to the kind of paunch that spoke of too much cheap beer wrapped around a man with beady eyes. "I didn't care to risk her," Draco said. "Oddly, I haven't found my stay here that pleasant and preferred she not experience it."

"' _Preferred she not experience it,'_ " he mimicked. "You poncy farts are all the same, think yer better than the rest of us."

"Only better than some," Ginny said. She kept her eyes on Draco, feigning adoration, so she missed the way the guard stiffened.

"Thing is, miss," he said. "Can't let him go without some proof you two's actually hitched up."

Draco found himself oddly charmed that Ginny Weasley didn't miss a beat. "April," she said. "in a classroom on the second floor. We did it alone."

"Our liaison wasn't the sort of thing we cared to advertise," Draco added. "Her friends didn't like me, mine didn't like her."

"To be honest," Ginny said, a phrase that elicited a bit of a hacking cough from the guard, "I'd never done a wedding bond before, so I'm not sure I did it properly."

"You did it beautifully," Draco said. He had no idea what was going on, but since things couldn't get much worse than being in a holding pen, he wasn't going to refuse to play along. "Best day of my life."

A sly little smile made the guard's piggy eyes crinkle into even smaller dots. "Wonderful," he sad. "Then ya won't mind relivin' it."

The walls began to press in on him and the edges of his vision disappeared into a haze of white. "What?" Draco asked. He'd been so close. For whatever mad reason, Ginny Weasley had decided to get him out of prison, and it had almost happened. He refused to let go of her fingers even as he leaned his forehead against the bars. He'd remember this, he told himself. He'd remember this when he was locked away up in the North Sea. Whatever else she was, she'd been willing to lie and cheat and scheme to save him, and he could almost love her just for that. She had freckles all down the pale skin of her arms, and they were like the stars in the sky, and she'd come for him.

Too bad he'd never find out why.

"Well," the guard was saying as Draco let one numb thought after another slide through his brain, "We'll just do a quick bonding ceremony, make sure that thing you did in the classroom took, and then send you lovebirds on your way."

Ginny's fingers curled into his hands until the nails dug in. "Great," she said a bit weakly.

"You don't have to do that," Draco said to her. He very much doubted she'd meant it to go this far, and some kind of honor he didn't know he still possessed insisted he couldn't let her tie herself to him like this. "The very idea of redoing our vows in this place is insulting. Go find someone who'll believe you - believe us - and not subject us to such a thing."

One of the Death Eaters down the hall jeered that if they did the vows here, could they do the wedding night here as well. He could use a bit of entertainment. "Rowle," Draco said in an undertone in case Ginny wanted to get revenge after she left and regrouped. "Not one of the sharper tools in the Death Eater shed."

"I see that," she said. She tilted her face up to him and said, "I don't mind redoing our vows if you don't."

The world, already closing in around him, began to reel and Draco had to close his eyes. "Whatever you want," he managed to say as he struggled to keep from passing out. Funny, really, he thought. He'd once mocked Potter for fainting at the sight of Dementors and now he turned out to really be the weak one, fainting at the hope of freedom.

The guard wouldn't open the door until he'd done a bit of spellwork and locked the pair of them into some kind of wedding vow. "You may kiss the bride," he said as the key clicked in the lock of his cell and Draco took Ginny Weasley into his arms, trying not to flinch when she inadvertently put a hand up against one of his more tender bruises. Her lips were soft, and she tasted of lemonade and sugar, and he'd known she was short but he'd never quite realized how short. She seemed to take up more space than she really did.

He waited until they'd been shown the door, until his wand had been handed back with a sneering suggestion he use whatever wealth he had left to get his bride a ring, until they had set off down the street to say, the words as quiet as a snake in the weeds, "I thought you were engaged to Saint Potter."

"I am," she said. She looked both ways before yanking him across the street and toward a part of London he didn't know well. "He's going to kill me."

. . . . . . . . .

 ** _A/N - I have had this posted on tumblr for a while and am moving it over to FFN just to try to keep everything in one place._**


	2. Chapter 2

By the time Ginny has dragged him all the way through London on foot, then up a flight of stairs to a dull looking townhouse, Draco's brief rush at being out of that holding cell and free of the threat of Azkaban has long faded. He hurt, and he was hungry, and his mood was as dark as the dirt and soot griming up the stones of their destination.

"Are you bringing me here to kill me?" he asked her, only half kidding. If he were going to kill someone, this would be the sort of place he'd bring them. "12 Grimmauld Place," he said, looking around. Grim and old was right. "Merlin, whoever named this street wasn't kidding."

Ginny just pushed the door opened and shoved him inside. The front hall delivered everything the facade promised. Dark walls loomed over a dark rug, and dark stairs wound up to where he assumed they kept the dead bodies. Heavy curtains hung over a portrait, and when he moved to tweak them back, Ginny jumped in front of him and knocked his hand away. "She's batty," Ginny said when she saw his surprised look. He'd been a bit forward, but her response had been somewhat drastic and his curiosity about what the curtain hid blossomed. "Sirius' mother. Screams at everyone, but we can't get her picture off the wall because there's a permanent sticking charm. The kitchen's better."

"If it has food, it would have to be," he said, letting go of his interest in the picture in favor of not being quite as physically miserable.

Ginny led him through the halls to a kitchen that did have food. "My mother sent over a bunch of things," she said. "Said there was no way either of us would know how to make things for someone who'd been in custody, that we'd probably just feed you cake and you'd throw it all up."

As she talked she ladled some kind of broth with noodles into a bowl and set it onto the table. Draco sat down, and as he began to eat he thought first that Molly Weasley, terrifying force on the battlefield, was a lot kinder than he would have expected, and second, that the word 'us' was far more terrifying. "Where is your other half?" he asked.

"Watching you eat."

Draco cringed as the smug words pushed into the room. He summoned the arrogant smirk neither time in the service of a madman nor incarceration had taken away, and glanced over at the source of the sound. Harry Potter looked damnably beloved. He always had. The savior of the wizarding world, given permission to play Quidditch a year early, no rumors had ever stuck to him, no sin had ever blackened him. Half-kill a boy in the toilet? Have a detention, Potter.

Funny how you could hate someone so much.

"Nice dinner," Draco said. He took another bite of the soup. "I'll have to write a proper note to thank my mother-in-law."

Draco watched Harry Potter's face go so white his ridiculous scar stood out even more than usual and just took another bite of the soup.

"Ginny," Harry said.

"There was a tiny hitch," she said.

Draco considered saying, "In that we got hitched, yes," but decided that perhaps discretion was the better part of being a good audience member and instead he kept eating as the pair of them engaged in a hissing fight he would have thought they'd have preferred to keep private.

Apparently not. Gryffindors.

As they continued on, with Ginny nearly screaming that what was she supposed to have done, they'd both agreed that Draco had been a victim and didn't deserve to go to Azkaban, the Draco in question began to profoundly hope that their sex life was quieter than this.

By the time Harry had sunk onto one of the other chairs and dropped his face into his hands, Draco had finished eating and felt a bit better. The habit of years took over and he decided to twist the knife he had in Potter's ribs. "I hate to interrupt your charming discussion," he said, "but I think I have a marriage to consummate. Darling?"

The look Ginny gave him would have left most men impotent for years. Draco admired the power of the look. It had no effect on him as he'd seen far worse at the Manor from Death Eaters and Dark Lords alike but it was still impressive. He couldn't back down quiet yet, however. "The kiss we shared was so good," he said. "Sweet and tender and filled with longing. I've kissed a few girls in my day, and I think you're probably the best. Second best, at the very least. I've been itching to taste more of you since - "

"If your penis is itching," Ginny said before he could go on, "it's probably a rash from some unspeakable thing you've done. We can have a mediwitch see to that."

Draco was relieved he wouldn't haven't to actually continue to spell out vulgarities. He felt a tiny bit of guilt he'd been ungentlemanly about the woman he'd saved him but managed to push that feeling aside in his delight that he'd managed to rile Potter up again. The man's predictability never grew old or dull. He could wax poetic about their little staged kiss every day for a week and Potter would probably fume every time.

"You _kissed_ him?" Harry asked Ginny in obvious horror. "You kissed _Malfoy?"_

"Technically," Draco said, "I think whenever you kiss her from now on you'll be kissing 'Malfoy'."

"I think I'll keep my own last name, thank you," Ginny said, her lips twitching with amusement she was trying to hide.

Draco shrugged. "I think you'll find I'm a reasonable husband. I don't have a problem with that."

Potter had gone from white to red and half risen out of his seat. Draco hoped the man didn't plan to start an actual fistfight. Three months in Ministry custody, some of it spent with what most people were happy to tell him were his former fellows, and he was somewhat the worse for wear and losing to Saint Potter - again - would be humiliating.

"Just stop," Ginny said, the amused twitch gone. She glowered at Harry until he sank back down and crossed his arms. The sulk wasn't attractive. Draco opened his mouth to say something about he was glad to see Potter knew who was boss, but Ginny turned her glare on him and he tried to make the way he cut himself off look natural. If her mean little smirk was any guidance, he'd failed and probably looked more like a gaping, gasping fish than he'd have liked. She sighed and let her eyes take in the worn clothing he had on. She couldn't see the bruises, but Draco suspected she wasn't stupid enough to think he was fine. "I'll show you to your room," she said. "We cleaned it out as best we could but this place is a dump."

Draco had noticed.

"It's a private dump, though, and Kreacher does his best, and you should stay here until we figure out if we can undo this sham without anyone noticing and tossing you into Azkaban."

Draco nodded. He pushed back from the table and tried to hide the flinch of pain when the movement pulled at a cut that had probably gotten infected. "I do appreciate it," he said, keeping his eyes only on Ginny. She'd done so much for him that looking directly at how much he owed her almost hurt; he didn't like having to be grateful to anyone, but he was, at least to indigent, ginger-haired, blood-traitor her. Potter could go hang. "All of it. More than I can say."

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Messing with the Ministry is what we do, right Harry?"

She turned for what she probably assumed was automatic agreement, but Harry wasn't looking at her at all. Instead, his eyes were on Draco and he said, "What's wrong?"

"You mean other than I got accidentally married today and seem to be living with you?" Draco asked. Of the myriad things he didn't want to discuss with Harry Potter, the variety of bruises and cuts he had under his shirt might have made the top of the list.

"You flinched," Harry said. "Just now, when you stood up."

"I'm fine," Draco said. He didn't look back when he let Ginny lead him up the stairs to the third floor and what was to be his room.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The room huddled under eaves on the top floor. Draco knew rooms like this; they were meant for servants. He poked at the desk someone had shoved into a crowded corner. They'd stocked it with parchment and quills.

"I thought you might want to write your mother," Ginny said. She glanced around the small room somewhat apologetically. "I know it's probably not what you're used to but we didn't think you'd be here longer than a day or two. See a Healer, make sure everything was in order, but now -"

"If I go it will be obvious we aren't really married." Draco understood. He didn't like it, but he understood. They had to pretend or she'd end up in as much trouble as he would. Well, maybe not quite as much. He doubted they'd ship her to prison, but the Ministry could still make her life fairly unpleasant.

"This floor is more private," Ginny said, and Draco smiled a bit wanly at the offering. When she added that there was a bathroom that only he would use, his smile became broader. He hadn't been denied bathing facilities in detention, but they had been communal and the water had wavered between a tepid brown stream and something clearer but cold enough to turn you blue. Even a servants' bath in this decrepit townhouse would be better.

At least he hoped so.

It was.

The bath itself wasn't going to make it into any magazine his mother would read. An old clawfoot tub with a yellow ring staining the porcelain hoisted a battered copper frame that held a shower curtain and, wonder of wonders, a shower. The shower had hot water and someone had left a bottle of fresh, herb scented soap. He might smell a bit like rosemary, but within minutes he was clean. He was clean and dressed in pajamas that he hoped weren't Potter's, and a quick look in the scratched up mirror showed none of the cuts had festered and, with his top on, nothing showed.

Back in his room he found three bottles of pain potion had been left on the desk and he swallowed the whole of one before taking out a quill and starting a letter to his mother.

Ginny, he thought, wasn't the worst wife a man could have, it would seem. Soap, pain potion, and he'd be willing to bet the tiny closet in the corner had been filled with things his size. And she lied like a pro. Too bad she had had the bad taste to get involved with Potter. Better not to dwell on things that couldn't be. He might be an arsehole and a Death Eater but he wasn't a cad. He'd tweak Potter's delicate sensibilities until he couldn't get a rise out of the man anymore but he wouldn't try to steal his girl.

Even if he had married her.


	3. Chapter 3 - A Visit to Malfoy Manor

_Dear Mother_ , Draco wrote the following morning. He considered whether he wanted to say 'mum', or, rather, that he desperately wanted to say mum and have his life be a thing she could fix with cake and a kiss, but, in the end, he decided that 'mother' was better. The Ministry was probably reading her mail, after all, and he should assume everything he wrote was going to be laughed at by some bureaucratic hack.

 _I need to apologize that I never told you about my marriage to Ginevra Weasley. You had significant other matters pressing on you and, to be honest, I did not think you would approve, either of the girl or that we did out vows on the sly in an empty classroom. I had resigned myself to concealing the entire matter to protect her but, lion that she is, she took the situation into her own hands and arrived at the Ministry and demanded they release me. I am currently residing with her at your Aunt Walburga's old townhouse and am fine. I know that you are under house arrest still, and I am not certain if they would let me in the door but I hope you are able to write._

 _As always, your loving and obedient son._

He hoped that would cover this lie, and that she would read between the lines to know the whole thing was a dodge. Why, after all, would his wife be living with Harry Potter?

Why would he be living with Harry Potter? The whole thing wasn't just a dodge. It was bizarre.

He wandered downstairs in search of an owl and breakfast, past portraits in desperate need of restoration and over rugs that had been threadbare a decade ago. He'd thought Potter was rich but apparently not. Or maybe he just didn't care he was living in near-squalor.

Someone had put a kettle on in the kitchen and he found a cup and a tin of teabags after poking in a few cupboards. "There's bread for toast in the box," a voice said.

Draco turned to see Potter dressed in ratty pajama bottoms and a grey t-shirt. He scowled at the man but swallowed his pride long enough to ask, "Do you have an owl I could borrow?"

Potter looked amused. "I have," he said. He held his hand out. "She bites strangers, though. Give it here and I'll pass it along."

Draco wanted to refuse. Somehow, handing over a letter to his mother and trusting his schoolyard nemesis would see it delivered felt like it took a bit of his soul and exposed it. The last thing he wanted was for Potter to know he cared about anything or anyone. Feelings made you vulnerable and vulnerability was exploitable. Potter must have read some of his hesitation because he waggled his hand and said, mockery evident, "Don't trust me?"

At that, Draco shrugged and passed over the note as thought it didn't matter. The shrug pulled at his sore shoulder, and he aborted the movement. Potter narrowed his eyes. "Too good to take a pain potion?" he asked.

"Leave him alone." Draco looked up to see Ginevra stomping into the kitchen. She'd tied her hair up in a sloppy knot on the top of her head, and her pajama bottoms dragged on the floor. The hem had worn and Draco wondered if he still had access to his wealth. He could get her something that fit, maybe clean this place up a little. He didn't want to ask her about that where Potter could hear, but he decided he'd corner her later. Gratitude would taste a little less bitter if he could sweeten it with gold.

"He flinched," Potter said.

"You need anything?" Ginny asked. "Trip to a Healer?" Draco looked at her. He wondered how many scars she had from the Carrows under her loose clothes. She couldn't be a stranger to going to bed in pain, or hiding the worst of it from prying eyes. He couldn't bear being less than she was.

"The stuff you left me is enough," he said. "Thank you."

"Then take it," Potter said.

"I'm fine," Draco said.

"I thought we might go see your mother today," Ginny said. She flicked a glance at the letter in Potter's hand. "Give it time for her to get that, then let her see you."

Draco felt a smile curve his lips up. He managed not to look at Potter as he said, "I can fetch you a wedding ring while we're there," he said. "What do you like? Whatever it is, there's sure to be something to your taste floating around. Rubies? Diamonds? Something exotic?"

The reaction was instant, predictable, and utterly gratifying. Ginny just looked amused, and maybe slightly pleased at the idea, but Potter almost growled at the idea of him draping Ginny in Malfoy heirlooms. "She's not really your wife, Malfoy," he said. "She's my girlfriend. Remember that."

Draco looked down at his hands. He could see the edge of one of his scrapes at one wrist, and he tugged his sleeves down to cover it. The movement gave him time to summon an arrogant smirk that wouldn't have been out of place on one of the filthy portraits of the endless generations of Blacks that hung in this place. They were his great-great-aunts and such, of course, and it was no wonder he could mimic their expressions, even if all he really wanted was to curl up in a ball and cry for a week. "But, Potter," he said. "She really is my wife. Magically bonded and everything."

He paused and looked at Ginny as a thought occurred to him for the first time. "You've probably already appeared on the Malfoy family mural."

. . . . . . . . . .

The Ministry Aurors postured at the end of the Malfoy drive, bored and happy to have someone to harass, but Ginny pulled out piles of paper with permits and orders and permissions and Draco looked at them in shock. She seemed terribly well prepared. The shock turned to a delighted smile when he asked on their walk from guarded gate to the Manor where, exactly, she'd gotten all those permits.

"Forged them," she said cheerfully. "George did most of the work, but you'd be surprised what people will believe as long as it's on official looking papers."

"I thought you people were the house of honor and all the good things," he said as the gravel drive crunched under their feet. A peacock strutted by and eyed them as if they were unwelcome but he couldn't be quite bothered to bestir himself to peck at them. Ginny laughed as if he'd made an excellent joke, but before he could ask what was so funny about his — everyones! — opinion of the lions, they were at the front door and his mother was waiting.

Daughters of the House of Black didn't display unwonted emotions but he could see the way her eyes searched over him, reassuring herself he was unharmed before she held her hands out to Ginny and said, "I'm so pleased to finally have a daughter."

Draco narrowed his eyes, and his mother tipped her head ever so slightly to the house. A curtain dropped back into place and he glanced at Ginny. She'd seen too. She beamed at his mother and said, "I cannot apologize enough that we kept this a secret."

Narcissa drew them into the foyer. The marble floor still had a crack in it where the chandelier had fallen during the war, and Draco could hear muffled footsteps as the inept spy retreated. "You do not need to apologize, my dear," she said as she led them over the crack, down a corridor, and to the smaller, family library. "It was wartime, and we all kept our alliances close to our chests."

"We did," Ginny said. "Still, it must have been a shock."

"Any shock that came with the news my son had been freed from prison is a shock I can easily endure," Narcissa said.

The family library had the Malfoy tree painted on one wall. The mural had always enchanted Draco as a child. He'd trace the lines connecting one name to another, and the line that led from himself to his father, from his father to the grandfather he'd never met. Each miniature portrait gazed out, some stiff, some smiling. Lucius and Narcissa spent most of their time looking either at one another, or at the tiny Draco below them. He'd loved to see how the painting of himself grew magically older as he did, and he'd asked his mother once if that would happen forever.

"Most people opt to stop aging in their family tree portrait when they get married," she'd said, and it was true that her own image hadn't grown any older in all the time he'd watched her.

"Will we have to bring a painter in," he'd asked, and she'd ruffled his hair and said no, the magic would do the work.

It had.

Draco looked at the tree and the small oval that contained a serious, worried blond boy, barely a young man, had been connected by a single line to a portrait of Ginevra Weasley. Her name had appeared in script below it, along with what he assumed was her birth date. Her portrait looked both pleased with itself and a bit impish. He wanted to reach out a finger and touch it. Something stirred in his gut at the sight of this proof that he was really and truly married.

"That's beautiful," Ginny said. She seemed more impressed than he would have expected, and her mouth hung open a bit as she took in the whole tree.

"We had a tapestry when I was a girl," Narcissa said. "I admit I like this better."

Ginny turned to Draco. "You look so sad in yours," she said.

"The last few years have been a bit shite," he said. He flushed as he realized his mother was standing right there. "Begging your pardon," he added.

"We'll have to make the next few better," Ginny said.

"On that front," Narcissa said, "I thought you might want to find your bride a ring. I'm sure you weren't able to do more than something as sweet as a bit of string at school, and sorting through the various boxes and bedrooms of this place gave me something to do once I saw Ginevra's name on the wall."

Draco wanted to tell her no, and he wanted to put jewellery on Ginny's hand, and he heard the story under her words. Narcissa had never been a woman with a lot of interests. She'd been raised to be a political hostess, and she'd done that with consummate skill. She'd liked to shop, and plan parties, and talk to people in power. She'd liked to bend those people until they grew towards her, espaliered trees who never realized their own deformities. Now she wandered through an empty house, trapped by Aurors and her husband's choices. Finding jewellery for her new daughter-in-law was something to do Ginny must have come to the same conclusion, because she set a gentle hand on his mother's arm. "I'd be honored," she said.

The look that flashed across Narcissa's face would have been relief on anyone less aristocratic. She simply sniffed and pulled open a box of the rings she'd gathered. Draco looked down and pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth as he examined them. They ranged from simple elegance to gaudy. "We should check them for lingering curses before you put one on," Narcissa said. "Some previous generations were a bit obsessive when it came to fidelity and, should wartime romance not, shall we say, work out, I'd hate for one or both of you to find yourselves… trapped."

Ginny had her hand poised above a simple band with rubies all the way around it. "They cold do that?" she asked.

"And did," Narcissa said. "Too often, if you ask me."

Ginny looked intrigued, but she was careful not to let the ring slide onto her finger as she pulled it out. Narcissa clucked approvingly. "I didn't know your taste, of course," she said, "So I picked up everything, but some of the Malfoys of the 1800s seemed to believe if big was good, bigger was better."

Having seen some of the rings in the box, Draco had to agree that, contrary to the common saying, diamonds _could_ be too large.

Narcissa pulled out her wand and ran a few checks on the band before pronouncing it clean. "I'll just go put this away," she said, "give you two a few moments."

The moments felt oppressive. Draco weighed the wedding ring in his hand and looked at his bride. She twitched her head toward the doorway and he sighed. They were surely being listened to and all the words he wanted to say about how he really did honor her, despite the irregularity of this situation, would have just exposed them both. He settled on, "A beautiful ring for a beautiful woman," and slid it onto her finger.

She pressed herself up onto her toes and wrapped her hands around his neck before she kissed him. He hadn't been expecting it, though, as soon as her lips were on his he knew she'd made the right choice. His mother's keeper probably had a spy-hole and normal couples would kiss at a moment like this.

He felt strangely lost as she swayed against him. He'd kissed Pansy any number of times, and there'd been that one, horrible night with Tracey when he'd been drunk and told her he was afraid he'd die a virgin and she'd taken that as a personal challenge. It didn't amount to a lot of experience. Fear, expectations, and death were all tunes he knew well. This one might be sweeter, but he didn't know how how it went. She did. Vivacious, popular Ginny Weasley had laughed from one boyfriend to the next until she'd transformed herself into a rebel and a fighter, and even then he suspected more than one boy at Hogwarts had fought as much for her as against Voldemort. She inspired that in people. He'd watched her do it. Her, and Neville Longbottom, and Potter. Heroes, all of them.

He wasn't like that.

And she swayed against him and kissed him as though he were all she'd ever wanted and he hated himself for wishing it were true, and that she weren't playing pretend for the Auror at the peep hole.

He wished it all the way home. He wished it as they kissed his mother goodbye and he promised to write to her every day, and to come back soon. He wished it as they held hands going back down the walk and she made a show of admiring the ring. He wished it as they apparated back onto Potter's front stoop and he yanked his hand out of hers and threw himself up the stairs.

"What's his problem?" Potter asked as he turned out of sight and leaned against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut because he would not cry. He would _not_. He could hear Ginny sigh, and he could hear her speak, though he couldn't make out the words, and then she wasn't talking and he pictured her kissing Potter the way she'd kissed him, only this time she meant it, and he went the rest of the way to his room. His room in Potter's house, where he was Potter's charity case.

Maybe Azkaban would have been better.


	4. Chapter 4 - Breakfast

Potter, it would seem, was an early riser. When Draco got to the kitchen for food in the morning, still in his t-shirt and pajamas - his host was already potting a kettle on. "We should talk," Potter said. His hair had fallen over his glasses and he pushed it away with a gesture half-impatient, half-oblivious. Draco eyed the way he stood there, king of his own, decrepit castle, and felt bile rise up.

Potter got to kiss Ginny. He got to do it whenever he wanted to. They were _together_ and he was just there, up in the attic, trying to ignore that attraction. He should leave.

"Life is filled with shoulds," Draco said. "You should have died."

"I break rules a lot," Harry said. He smiled at some private joke and Draco remembered the way he and his cohorts had always been getting caught in some shenanigans or other. School had been endless whispers about had Potter _really_ done whatever rumor said this time. Being Dumbledore's favorite had made him untouchable.

The thought of Dumbledore made Draco's stomach lurch and, wanting to not think about that, he slammed open first one cupboard then another looking for sugar. He found old plates that should have been thrown away, a beer stein that nearly quivered with magic but also had a large spider perched on the handle, and a tin of expired sardines. No sugar.

When he turned around, Potter held a white bowl with horrid pink flowers all around it. "Looking for this?" he asked.

Draco took it, and the spoon Potter held out. "Interesting taste in china," he said. "I would have thought you were more of a kittens kind of guy, but the little roses are nice too."

"Are you ever not a dick?" Potter asked.

Draco measured out first one, then two spoonfuls of sugar. He opened a tea bag and managed not to say Potter would be the kind of person to use bags and not loose tea. Finally, he took the whistling kettle off the flame and said, "I hate you, so no, probably not."

"Why?" Potter sounded genuinely confused. He waited for Draco to pour water, poured his own, then sat at the table.

"If you have to ask, Potter," Draco said. He leaned up against the counter and took a sip. The shock of the sweetened tea made his mouth curl but he wasn't going to dump it out and try again with less sugar now. He took another sip, then another. He would drink this whole mug with a smile before he'd admit he'd messed it up to Harry Potter. "Aren't you too good for me, anyway? The hero and the villain? What is this, some children's puppet show with a tidy moral at the end?"

"No," Potter said. His eyes roamed over Draco's face then dropped to his arms.

Draco slowly turned his wrist so Potter could see the Dark Mark burned into his skin. "Like I said, villain," he said. The rotation made his shoulder ache, and he wanted desperately to cover up the marks of detention, but he refused to let this man, of all people, see him try to hide anything. He'd just brazen it out. "Want me to describe what it's like to get one?"

"Not really," Potter said. He looked like he might be ill at the idea but his eyes didn't stray from Draco's arm. "I'm not that interested in your little gang tattoo."

"Then maybe you should stop staring at it," Draco said. He took another sip of the vile tea. "I might start to get ideas."

Potter flushed. Draco almost dropped his mug as a dull red crept up Harry Potter's neck, over his face, and up into his dark hair. It left the scar on his forehead a stark white. What on earth? He'd just thrown that out there, a blind jab in the dark. He hadn't expected to score a hit.

"I just want to get some ground rules set up," Harry said. He sounded as if he were choking on something. "Since we're stuck living together."

"Do we trade nights?" Draco asked. "With Ginny? I mean, I think I'm being pretty liberal not minding my wife has a boyfriend, but – "

"Stop it Malfoy." Harry said. The words were still half-strangled and Potter looked so uncomfortable and red Draco, no stranger to unforgiving pale skin that showed every thought, relented. It wasn't as if he wanted to drag Ginny though the mud anyway.

"Look, I'll stay out of your way," he said. "You don't want me here, I get it."

"I don't think you do," Potter said slowly. "It was my idea to – "

"Saint Potter, I know," Draco said. "Always there for the downtrodden." He set his over-sweetened tea down on the counter. "And believe me, I'm very grateful. I'll be in my room, making no noise, being grateful."

For some inexplicable reason that made Potter look even more miserable. Draco tried to care, but he really didn't. Whatever demons plagued the Chosen One were his own problem.

Ginny found him up in his room. He'd whisked himself up the stairs, still hungry but grateful to have an excuse to leave the tea behind. He'd thrown himself down on the bed and tried to ignore any thoughts. He'd stopped feeling in jail. He didn't need to feel. Life was much easier without feelings.

He ignored her knock, and she ignored his silence and came in anyway. At his glare, she set a tray down and said, "I don't plan on doing the waiting-on-you wifey thing, so don't get used to this."

"We'll figure out how to undo it," he said without explaining what he meant. He knew she'd follow along. "I don't want a wife and Merlin knows you're too smart to want me. You can marry Potter and live happily ever after. Two good people in love. The heart rejoices."

She sat on the edge of the bed and laced her fingers through his. The touch was electric. He inhaled through his nose and counted to five so he wouldn't yank his hand away, so he wouldn't hold on tightly. "You have a real knack for being a shite," she said.

"I don't want to be in the way," he said stiffly. "While I'm very grateful that you – "

"Stop," she said. She tightened her grip on him. "I liked you more as an arsehole than as this very polite person determined not to be an imposition."

"Well, I am so determined," he said. If possible, his voice had gotten even more rigid. "Though I did mean to thank you for the pain potions. That was very considerate of you."

Her smile grew ever so slightly predatory. "That wasn't me," she said. She yanked on his hand hard enough that he had to sit up to keep her from wrenching his arm right out of his shoulder. Gentle she wasn't and all those years playing Quidditch had left her fit.

Very fit.

He was going to ask if it hadn't been her who had left the pain medication but he'd no sooner formed the question in his mind than he knew the answer. It made him want to throw them all away. "Potter," he said bitterly.

"The one and only," Ginny said. She must have read his thoughts because she added, not an ounce of sympathy in her voice, "I know you aren't stupid enough to bin something just because Harry gave it to you."

"Oh?" he asked. He could hear he was being an idiot but he said it anyway. "Maybe I am just that stupid."

She laughed and his heart lurched and he decided he needed to figure out the most logical reasons he would leave a bride he was so newly reunited with. Maybe he could go on some kind of penitent's walk, or on a research trip to someplace far, far away, or just go into hiding. Something, surely, would be believable.

"We're going into Diagon Alley today," she said, interrupting his thoughts.

"That's nice," he said.

"I'm not asking if you want me to pick you up anything," she said. "I'm telling you to get ready to put on a show." She leaned forward and said in a mock whisper, " _The press."_

"Shite," Draco said.

"Oh yes," she said. "We'll go, meet my family for lunch. My mother plans to fawn on Harry, bustle about you, and all in all give the impression we're all one big happy group."

Draco could think of few things less appealing.

"Your mother will probably find the eventual article reassuring," Ginny said.

His head shot up and he looked at her, searching for the malicious guile he was sure had to be behind any statement that pointed. She looked back, not even trying to hide that she was manipulating him but there wasn't a drop of malice to be seen. "You're sneaky," he said somewhat begrudgingly. He didn't need another reason to admire her.

"So's Harry," she said.

He didn't think he'd be admiring Harry Potter any time soon.

"We can kiss again," she said. "Last time for the ministry good behind the keyhole, this time for whatever photographer is hiding in the bushes."

"Great," Draco said.

"So, eat that, come downstairs looking pretty, and we'll go out and charm the masses," she said.

"How do I know you didn't spit in it?" he asked, but he'd already accepted he needed to eat.

"You don't," she said before she left, a grin on her face.

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N – Thank you for your patience with the slow updates and all your support. It means the world.**


	5. Chapter 5 - Lunch

Molly Weasley flung her arms around him and pulled him into the least dignified hug Draco had ever experienced. She smelled of bacon and laundry soap and felt squishy in ways his own mother never did. He told himself it would be rude to extricate himself so he stood and endured the embrace until she put her hands on his shoulders, pushed him away, and ran her eyes over his thin frame. "Let me look at you," she said. "Honestly, did they even feed you in jail? George, look at this."

A lanky man who had to be George Weasley said, "I see him, Mum."

"Welcome," Molly said, and hustled him towards a café with outdoor seating. The part of Draco's mind that was still working admired her strategy. It would be easy enough for photographers to get what they wanted here, but the placement of the tables still allowed for private conversations. Whatever else she might be, the Weasley matriarch wasn't a fool.

Knowing what he did about her daughter, he should have anticipated that.

"I wanted to thank you for the soup," he said as they all sat down.

"Oh," she said beaming at him, "It was no problem. I knew Harry and Ginny wouldn't have the faintest idea what to feed you. It would have been all sweets and rich puddings and you would have been sick." She leaned over the table and patted him on the arm. "Ginny's a love, but she can be impulsive," she said. "Doesn't think things through. You'll be good for her, give her a streak of caution."

Draco could hear the snap of a camera going off and thought rather wryly of adages regarding pots and the names they called kettles. "I'll do my best," he said, "but I think you flatter me."

"I'm sure she does," Potter said.

"Harry Potter," Molly Weasley said. It was a clear warning and Draco watched Potter put on what might have passed for a smile if you didn't know him well. It was clear Molly wasn't fooled either but she held herself to a long, level look before picking up a menu and declaring everyone should order. Now.

Even if Ginny weren't a near mirror of her mother, her heritage would have been obvious. Draco looked over at Harry Potter. The man met his eyes and grimaced, surely the first moment of commiseration they'd ever shared. Draco looked down at the list of sandwich options. They all seemed equally dreadful so he picked one at random, said just water would be fine, and listened as everyone else ordered. Potter seemed equally indifferent to food. Ginny wanted the special. Molly dithered over side dishes until George said, "Just give her the chips." At her huff he said, "I'm sure the steamed broccoli is healthier but live a little, Mum."

"You can have my broccoli if you really want it," Draco offered.

"Isn't he the sweetest," Molly said. She glared at George and handed her menu back over but didn't tell the waitress not to bring her the chips.

"So," George said once they were left alone, "Malfoy. Does her snoring keep you up at night?"

"Snoring?" Draco made the mistake of asking.

"I do not snore," Ginny snapped.

"You do," Ron said right as George said, "I knew it. They aren't really sleeping together."

Molly Weasley made a hushing gesture with her hand and looked furiously over at the photographer leaning against a lamppost. "We talked about this," she said so quietly Draco had to strain to hear her. The low level of her volume didn't mask her anger. "Ginny and Harry wanted to keep him out of Azkaban, which is a good thing because he is a child."

Draco wasn't sure he liked being talked about as if he weren't there, especially since she seemed to consider him to be perhaps five.

"He's old enough to be legally married," George said dryly.

Draco had to fight the urge to say, "Thank you."

" _Was_ a child," Molly corrected herself. "At the time everything happened."

"We were all children," Harry said. He reached his hand over and Draco watched him lace his fingers through Ginny's. "And she doesn't snore."

"You wouldn't know. You sleep like the dead," Ron Weasley said, then, as if he heard himself a moment too late, his skin turned a violent red. "Sorry."

Draco wondered how long it would take to get the food. Time seemed to drag on. Molly spoke too brightly, asking George how his business was going and Ron and Harry about Auror training. They all answered with the kind of too happy answers he recognized. These were people determined to be fine no matter what. No one asked him anything and he wasn't sure whether to be grateful he didn't have to feign delight with his recent imprisonment – oh, it was fine, everything was very humane, loved the company – or whether he felt left out of their easy comraderies.

Potter met his eye. Draco waited for the bastard to make some underhanded jab that would get them all laughing at his expense. He knew Potter was good at that sort of thing – they'd been rivals for so long he knew Potter could use words to spar and hurt and wound – and, if he were being honest, he knew he deserved it. Instead Potter had the misbegotten grace to look sympathetic, then relieved when lunch arrived. He ate with the fervor of a man who knew he chewed too quickly but couldn't quite help himself.

Ron Weasley ate the same way.

Ginny, at least, had sufficient manners to eat slowly. His mother would approve of her.

He wondered why Potter ate like a man who'd been starved.

He didn't want to wonder that so he forced his mind to stop caring, stop worrying, stop _wondering_ and instead turned on the social training no son of a Malfoy and Black would ever be free of and asked Molly Weasley about her cooking and told her this lunch was lovely but couldn't compare with the meal she'd sent over to him for his first night of freedom. He twisted compliment after compliment into a bouquet he presented her and her smile went from too bright, too forced, too determined to do the right thing to genuine.

When she kissed him on the cheek to send them on their way, she meant it.

"That," Potter said as he looped an arm around Draco's shoulders as if they were old chums, "was impressive."

Potter's hand hit against an especially sore spot and Draco couldn't keep himself from sucking in. Potter noticed the quick gasp and asked, "It still hurts?"

Draco smiled for the cameras and said through gritted teeth, "I was kicked around by Death Eaters in prison for a rather long time. Yes, you fucking wanker, it still hurts."

Ginny picked that moment to side along apparate all of them back to the townhouse of doom. Draco glared at the curtained portrait he'd yet to see and glared at the worn carpet. Potter opened his mouth and Draco could almost see the way his mind was going and he could take his saving people thing and shove it. "You house is a dump, Potter," he said. Better to go on the attack than have to talk about ow, yes, it hurt. It hurt even with pain potions. It would hurt for years. He would wake up in ten years shaking because he remembered Voldemort. He would wake up vomiting because he remembered Dolohov.

Death Eaters were not nice people.

He shoved all those thoughts, all those memories, into a box and put it as far in the back of his mind as possible and sneered at Potter with as much contempt as he could muster. Untouched little hero with the perfect girlfriend. What did he know?

The sneer worked. Predictable, easy to rile up Harry Potter dropped any question of Draco Malfoy's pain and struck back.

"At least no one's ever been tortured here," Potter said. "More than you can say about your home."

"I thought this _was_ my home these days," Draco said. He wanted to fight so badly. He wanted to hit and hit and hit until he could spit out the anger curdling in his throat. "Though it could use a bit of a redo."

Potter balled his fists up and Draco took a step closer. "Arsehole," Potter said.

"Or maybe you just like living in filth?" Draco said.

Potter swung first but it was a wild blow, flailing and furious but easy to avoid. Draco had learned to avoid far crueler strikes in prison. He'd never learned to hit back, though. Fighting back had just made it worse, so his own punch was just as wild and uncontrolled and childish as Potter's. He didn't care. Potter threw another punch and that one connected with his jaw, and then Draco just lunged at him and the pair of were rolling on the floor of the entrance hall of 12 Grimmauld Place. Ginny took a step back and Draco heard her say, "I'll just let you two work it out," but he wasn't listening. He didn't care. His world had reduced to a head of messy black hair and pair of green eyes and his burning desire to finally – _finally_ – best Potter in something. In _anything._

Potter landed a punch on his arm, right where one of the nastier bruises lay, and Draco retaliated with a solid hit to Potter's gut. He grunted out something that might have been, "You fucker," but it was hard to tell because Draco was grinding his head into the floor, then they had rolled over and Potter was doing the same to him, and then he had his hands around Potter's neck and for a brief moment he fantasized about choking the life out of perfect, perfect Harry Potter.

Then he didn't.

He let go and sat up, leaned so his back was against the wall, and said, "Your house is a disaster."

He was breathing so hard around the words he wasn't sure Potter could understand them. He wasn't sure the man wouldn't just start the fight up again. He braced himself against another onslaught only to hear his ongoing nemesis say, "Well, it was your family's townhouse. Not my fault if the Blacks let it turn into a shitehole."

Draco could feel his shoulder's sag and he closed his eyes and tipped his head back up against the wall. "Crazy fuckers," he said. "All of them."

"Not Sirius."

Draco let out a snort but decided to let that go. He'd defend his mother but anyone who lied to Voldemort was as crazy as they came. Aunt Bella had been missing so many bats her belfry had been downright empty. He was pretty sure Sirius had been as much of a loon as the rest of them. "Whatever you say, Potter."

"Your Aunt Bellatrix was a piece of work."

"On that we can agree."

Potter sighed. "If it hurts," he began.

"I don't want to talk about it," Draco said. He looked right at Potter and willed the thick-headed, pushy, righteous bastard to understand what he meant. "Not ever."

Potter met his eyes and his mouth twisted into something that looked too much like someone fighting off emotion. Draco braced himself for what horror might come but instead Harry Potter stuck out his hand. "Hi," he said. "I'm Harry Potter."

Draco took it. "I think I might have married your girlfriend," he said. "Seems not quite the done thing. Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it," Harry said. "I'm sure the three of us will find a way to make it work."

Draco exhaled. "Maybe we can start with you letting me help you buy some decent furniture for this place?"

He was afraid Potter – afraid _Harry_ – would throw the offer back in his face, offended at the condescension. Instead, he grinned and said, "Good luck. Ginny has opinions."

"About furniture?"

"About everything."

. . . . . . . .

 _ **A/N - Because, damn it, it's fanfic, and if I want to write an entire self-indulgent chapter about shopping for furniture, I can do that. Also, the last time I tried to shop for furniture in real life, my husband told me life would be easier if I weren't so opinionated BUT IT WAS AN UGLY CHAIR. So I have authentic life experience to draw on for chapter 6. We didn't buy the chair.**_

 _ **Thank you for indulging me. Also, to answer the myriad reviews asking if this is going to be a triad fic, yes.**_


	6. Chapter 6 - Shopping

"There is nothing wrong with this chair," Draco said. He glared at Ginny who poked at the very expensive, very nice antique with disdain. "It's _authentic_ ," he said in desperation. So far, she had turned her nose up at a reclining lounge chair, a Queen Anne side chair, a gigantic stuffed beanbag and now this.

"Authentically ugly," she said. "It's beige. Who covers a wooden chair in beige silk?"

"Beige is a perfectly nice neutral color," Draco said. He looked over at Harry, hoping to get some sort of support here, but Harry – traitor to his gender – had become fascinated by a candelabra and was picking it up and turning it over and again in his hands. Bastard.

"It doesn't have arms," she said.

"Would you just sit in it?" Draco asked.

Ginny sat down in the chair and went to swing her legs up over the arms that weren't there. "Huh," she said. "It doesn't work."

"But it's valuable," Draco said. "And it goes with the style of the house. What do you want to do? Throw some ugly pink thing from the 1950s in a London townhouse?"

"I just don't like it," Ginny said. She patted the chair as if apologizing to it for her disdain. The chair seemed unmoved by her regret and Draco began to be grateful they'd gone to a Muggle shop. A wizarding chair might have tried to take a bite out of her arse. "Pink might be nice, though. Better than this beige."

"Do you folks need any help?"

Draco and Harry both said no in unison and the salesgirl took a step backward, about to apologize, when Ginny said, "Yes."

The salesgirl managed to put an I'm eager to help you smile on though Draco was sure she was beginning to regret approaching them. "What are you looking for?" she asked.

"The entire flat is a disaster," Ginny said. She pointed at Draco. "It was his great aunt's and when she died everyone just left everything."

"Walburga is not my fault," Draco said. "And you've been living there for a while now and have done nothing other than clean up the kitchen."

"That was my mum," Ginny said to the salesgirl whose professional smile had taken on a more predatory gleam. Between Draco's posh accent and the realization these people needed everything she was probably already calculating her commission in her mind. They might be difficult and squabbling and rude, but they were money in the bank.

"What type of things do you like?" she asked. "We carry everything from antiques to some beautiful mid-century modern pieces."

"What do you have that's pink?" Ginny asked.

Draco looked over at Harry in disbelief. "Pink," he mouthed in horror. This was his fault. He had said the word pink and how she was going to get something in that shade just to annoy him.

"Pink and yellow," Ginny said. "Like the red and gold of school but a little toned down."

"I warned you," Harry said. "Opinions."

The saleswoman held out her arm and Ginny, with a smugly pleased look back at both Draco and Harry, let herself be guided up a set of stairs, around a corner, and into a room with furniture that made Draco close his eyes in horror. This had to be a joke. He'd shown her beautiful antiques with silk upholstery on and carved legs and she'd rejected all of it as ugly. His mother – a woman with unforgiving and precise opinions about furniture – would have approved of the last chair he'd found. And they'd been taken from that to this?

"Is that even real leather?" Draco asked.

"It looks like something you'd see in a dentist's office," Harry said.

The chair was, indeed, pink. And it was leather, or at least something approximating leather. Draco didn't want to touch it to find out for sure. A black metal frame made of what looked like industrial tubing held up three separate pieces of chair, each uglier than the one before. Ginny sat down in it. "This is wonderful," she said. "It's so comfortable."

"The mid-century designers were very interested in the way the human form interacts with furniture," the saleswoman said.

"Well, they certainly weren't interested in aesthetics," Draco said.

The saleswoman pursed her mouth. "This," she said, "is an authentic – "

Draco held up his hand to stop her. "I don't care," he said. He really didn't want to hear her recite the bona fides of the piece of horrid trash. "If Ginny likes it, it's fine, even if it was made by free elves with a shoe fetish."

The pursed lips turned into a smile. Harry let out a cough that sounded half choked. "Are you okay?" Draco asked.

"The elf thing," Harry said.

"It's nice to see a - boyfriend?- so supportive. So many men dislike this style," the saleswoman said.

"I'm her husband," Draco said. He really rather liked saying that. He'd be sad when he had to stop. Harry began to cough again. "Do you need some water?" he asked.

"No," Harry got out. "I'm fine."

"And who are you?" the saleswoman asked. "I do so love to see friends shopping together."

"A… friend," Harry said. "I'm her… friend."

"You're both of our friends," Ginny said.

"I think I'm better friends with you," Harry said.

Draco put a hand over his heart. "I think I'm offended," he said. "I thought we were the best of friends, Harry. How can you tell me you're closer to Ginny?"

"We're all really equally close," Ginny said.

Harry turned red.

The saleswoman, no stranger to complicated dynamics that could scuttle a sale, said, "So you're all roommates then? London is so expensive many people end up rooming together."

"Yes," Harry said in a rush, clearly happy to have an explanation, or perhaps it was only clear to Draco, who'd spent years staring at the man. "We're roommates. That's all. That's exactly it."

"Well, I know how those old family places can be," the saleswoman said. "Tins of flour from World War 2 still sitting in back cupboards filled with who knows what. Weevils, most like."

"It's dreadful," Ginny said with conspiratorial relish. "And the stuff they hung on the walls back in the day? It's so bad it practically screams at you."

Harry was overtaken by another coughing fit.

"Well, we do carry wall art as well," the woman said. "Let me show you some things that might go well with that chair." She led Ginny off, one arm not quite slung around her shoulder, decision maker identified. Husband and roommate were left standing by the offending pink chair.

"That," Draco said pointing at it, "is hideous."

Harry pointed up at what had to be some of the 'wall art' the saleswoman had mentioned. Black letters of various sizes had been printed onto canvas. They didn't spell anything out. There was no code, no meaning, just font. "Do you think we'll end up with that?"

"That is not art," Draco said.

"My aunt would have liked it," Harry said. He looked around a bit gloomily, though he brightened when his gaze settled on the chair. "She would have hated that, though. Too loud."

"You weren't close?" Draco said. It was the polite thing to say, a neat way to dismiss family that you acknowledged but didn't want to have over for tea. His mother might say it about Andromeda. Oh, we aren't close any more. 'Not close' covered a lot of ground from murderous hatred to casual indifference.

"Not close works," Harry said.

Draco could hear what sounded like long-suppressed rage. Curious. "Should we have her over to be horrified by it, then?" he asked. "I can put on my best Malfoy sneer for her."

"She hates magic," Harry said shortly. "Best not."

Draco took a step closer, until he could feel Harry Potter's breath, and said, "You hate her." Harry tried to take a step away but he ended up with his back to a pretentiously exposed brick wall festooned with ugly clocks. He closed the distance between them with another step. He could almost feel the heat of Potter's body. "You really, really hate her," he said in a low voice. "Why?"

"None of your damn business, Malfoy," Harry said. He kept it quiet though. He didn't want a scene. Good.

"I'm Malfoy again?" Draco asked. He liked this game. It wasn't nice of him but, damn, it felt good to literally see Harry Potter backing himself into a wall to get away from him. Harry's eyes met his and they almost boiled with fury but also something else. "I thought we'd moved to Harry and Draco."

"I hate you," Harry said.

"No, you don't," Draco said. He knew it was true as soon as he said it. Potter wouldn't have agreed to help get him out of jail if hate was the only thing he felt. He met those green eyes and tried to figure out what he saw.

"I found a –." Ginny appeared again. She stopped mid-sentence and put her hands on her hips. "Stop, both of you," she said.

Draco stepped back at once and brushed at his trousers. "We were just admiring the clocks," he said.

"Clocks are great," Harry said in rapid agreement. "Time, you know. It's important."

"Oh, good," Ginny said. "Which one do you think we should buy?"

Harry turned and looked up at the wall. "That one," he said, pointing at what had to be random. His finger landed on a clock that looked like a child's illustration of the sun, assuming the child in question was either not a talented artist or had resented being asked to draw a sun and so had been as difficult and petty about it as possible.

Ginny glanced at Draco, challenge in every line of her body. "Draco?" she asked.

"Oh, I agree with Harry," Draco said. "That's a marvelous clock."

"I'll add it to the pile," the saleswoman said.

"Dare I ask?" Draco said. They hadn't been gone long. Surely they hadn't made that many decisions. How bad could it be?

"I think you'll be very happy," the saleswoman said. "Your wife made selections for the main sitting area, from carpets to seats to a kidney table."

"It's made out of kidneys?" Draco asked. He glanced over at Harry. Was this some kind of Muggle thing? Harry knew Muggles. He would know if this was a joke, right? Unfortunately, Harry looked just as lost as he felt.

The saleswoman laughed as though he had been the one to make the joke. "No, it's the shape," she said. "Very popular in mid-century modern design. It will go brilliantly with the rest of what she picked out." She leaned over and said in a stage whisper. "She has marvelous taste but, then, she picked you, didn't she."

Draco flicked another glance at Harry. "Indeed," he said. "Ginny picks all the best things."

Harry scowled and blushed and pushed that black hair back off his glasses. It fell right back into his eyes and Draco smirked. Harry glared. The saleswoman said in the chirpiest voice imaginable, "If you could just tell me how you'd like me to bill this, and where to deliver it, we can get your new furniture to you, oh, I think the next open delivery window is next week, but I can try to get them to put a rush on it."

Draco had the sinking, horrible realization that Gringotts gold wasn't going to work. Damn, Muggles, anyway. What did they use instead of proper currency? Harry followed his thoughts far too acutely and said, "Could you send the bill to our address. Draco'll ring up the bank and have them send a draft over. Hate to use credit for things like this. Sets up a bad habit, you know."

The saleswoman beamed as though that were the most logical thing and nodded in what pretended to be absolute agreement. Draco hated how relieved he felt that Harry Potter took over and chatted to the woman as he wrote down the address, asked if she knew any top-notch cleaning services that could give the place a good going over before they brought the new things in, and maybe a rubbish hauling service too. "Might as well get it all done at once," he said after he signed his name to some paperwork she slipped in front of him.

"Gringotts?" Draco asked. He was not letting Harry Potter pay for this. Absolutely not.

"Sounds perfect," Ginny said. "And then you two can take me out for a late lunch."

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Thank you so much to moonlightmasquerade for beta reading.**


	7. Chapter 7 - Getting Closer

Lunch was painless.

Arranging to have monies changed to Muggle funds and sent over to the furniture store to pay for whatever monstrosities Ginny had picked out was painless.

Walking back to the Black townhouse was painless. The three of them stopped at a flower stand outside a small grocer and Harry and Draco made a show of arguing about which flowers they ought to get for Ginny while she rolled her eyes and laughed at them both. They had so much Muggle money left that they bought one of each and she walked home, her arms so laden down with blooms you could barely see the woman behind the petals.

Harry got the door and Draco brushed past him with a smug comment about how footmen were supposed to hold doors, and Ginny pulled one stem out and bapped him on the head with it. "Behave," she said, but there was a fondness to the admonition. The fondness grew when she dumped the flowers onto a dark side table that, while it might have been an invaluable antique, was, upon due reflection, also hideous. And heavy. And the carved gargoyles on the balls of the feet of the thing, suffering miserably, made it more than a little creepy.

Maybe the pink chair wasn't so bad.

He could learn to like pink.

Ginny followed him into the sitting room they'd officially refurnished and laughed at his face. The carpets were worn. The paintings were bad. The furniture looked like it was waiting to die. "Do you think we could just bin the lot?" he asked.

Harry had come in behind them. "It isn't your house," he said.

Draco _accioed_ a book from the shelf. A cloud of dust followed it and he could hear the squeak of some creature, angry at being disturbed. He hoped it was something as innocuous as a mouse but, given this was the family home of the ancient and insane house of Black, whatever it was probably ate mice and made pyres of their bones. He opened the book. It hissed. He closed it again as quickly as he could because, under it all, he was a coward and had no interest in whatever ugliness the words in that book would reveal. "You can't want this," he said, shaking the book.

"It's just that it was Sirius' house," Harry said a little helplessly. "I can't – "'

"He hated this place," Ginny said. "You can."

"Maybe," Harry began.

Draco lobbed the book at him. It wasn't a hard throw. It wasn't malicious. It was almost playful. Harry snatched the book from the air and looked at the title. _"_ How to Mount Elf Heads at Home," he said in horror. He threw the book back at Draco. "You had to pick that one?"

"It was just random," Draco said. He _accioed_ another book. _The Problem with Muggle-Borns: Filth in Our Midst._ He tossed that one over. Harry made a face when he saw what it was and threw it into the fireplace.

"Since when do you care about prejudiced pure-blood arseholes?" Harry asked.

"I don't," Draco said. He threw another book. "But your friend, bushy and horrible, might not feel welcome if you're keeping shite like that on the shelves."

"Bushy and horrible?" Harry asked. Draco shrugged. It was a good description of the girl who'd trailed after him for years. You couldn't watch Harry Potter without getting an eyeful of Hermione Granger. An unpleasant eyeful. He flicked his wand at the fireplace and the offensive book burst into flame.

"Are we sure that draws?" Ginny asked, but it was too late. Draco was making the books sail across the room and Harry had pulled an umbrella out of a stand and, while avoiding the mouth at the base that wanted to bite of his fingers, he was whacking the books out of the air.

"She's not horrible," he said.

"She does call him the ferret," Ginny said, ducking out of the way of a book that went astray. "And Luna, Looney."

"We'd be dead if it weren't for her," Harry said. Draco sent another book at him. What must it be like to have that kind of loyalty focused on you? His mother felt that way, of course, but there were books about boys who got too close to their mums, and they weren't romances. Horror stories, maybe. He wasn't the sort to inspire friends to defend him the way Harry defended Granger. Even Goyle had abandoned him in the end. Even Pansy.

He threw the next book so hard its spine broke when Harry whacked it with the umbrella.

"I'll be upstairs," Ginny said.

They both ignored her.

"Why do you hate your aunt," Draco asked. "Did she not give you all the sweets you wanted? Not think you were the precious Chosen One?"

He lobbed another book at Harry, who snatched this one from the air with a hand and hurled it into the fire place. Black smoke billowed up and a horrid screech came from the pages as they burned. That one, apparently, had been one of those Dark texts. Draco hoped precious knowledge from the past had just been lost. He hoped they'd destroyed the last copy of some foul spell only people like the Blacks would have kept alive.

"Fuck you," Harry said.

"Hah," Draco said. Another book hit the umbrella. "You wish."

He threw another book, this time using his hands instead of just a charm, and hurled it as hard as he could at Harry's head. He ducked and the book smashed into the wall. "She locked me in the fucking cupboard," he said.

Draco had another book in his hand, ready to throw it. His hand stopped midair and the force of his own momentum drove him to take a few steps towards Harry. "She did what?" he asked.

Harry was panting, which had to be rage. "First in a closet," he said, "then in my room."

"Go out the window," Draco said. Harry had spent most of their time at Hogwarts sneaking around. He couldn't believe one lousy locked Muggle door would keep him anywhere.

Until he said, "Bars on the window."

Draco lowered the book and stared at Harry Potter. Green eyes. Black hair. The Chosen One. Scar on his forehead. Another one on his hand because he'd been too stubborn to cave to Dolores Umbridge. "Locked in a closet," he said. He turned and walked away, book still in one hand, and looked out the window at the square. Muggles were walking by. The place was so quaint it was picturesque. He didn't know what to say.

"Make you feel better?" Harry asked. It was almost a taunt but not quite. It was almost desperation but not quite. "My life was utter shite growing up. Being _chosen_ meant I got nothing."

"Why did you save me?" Draco asked. The words were quiet.

"It wasn't fair," Harry said. "You were a -."

"Don't fucking lie to me," Draco said. He turned around and put on as mocking a smile as he could and let his eyes fall to the back of Harry's hand. "You must not tell lies, remember?"

"It wasn't _fair_ ," Harry said again.

This time the words flung themselves at him and Draco had to wonder what it was he wanted the other man to say. What fantasy could he not even articulate to himself? He shrugged and slouched and gave whatever it was up. Whatever it was, it wasn't going to happen. "None of it was," he said. "A fucking closet? What the hell?"

Harry deflated. "Yeah," he said.

"At least tell me it was a walk-in," Draco said. He knew it wasn't. He wasn't quite sure what kind of people locked a child in a closet, but he was willing to guess that sort didn't pick the nice closet for the abuse.

Harry let out a chuff that tried to be a laugh. "Under the stairs," he said.

"God," Draco said. "That sucks."

His feet carried him to a chair and he sank down into it without bothering to check if it had some kind of monster lurking in the cushions. One of the feet hissed at him but he closed his eyes, too tired to even pretend to fight any more and certainly too tired to battle furniture. They were definitely throwing this piece away. Let it complain he had the nerve to sit on it. It could tell its sorrows to the rubbish heap in a few hours.

"Yeah," Harry said. "It did."

"I'm sorry," Draco said. "I could curse them," he offered, his eyes still closed. He'd learned a few things with Voldemort in the house. None of them were very nice. Many of them were untraceable and undetectable. He should know. He'd felt them.

"After all the trouble we went to get you out of prison?" Harry said. "Fucking ungrateful sot."

Draco could feel his hackles rise a little, but when he pried open an eye and peered at Harry Potter, the man was grinning at him. It lit up his face. It made those green eyes sparkle with mischief.

"Haven't even consummated my marriage yet," Draco said, testing the waters. "Maybe I should at least wait for that before I get myself hauled back off to prison."

Harry tensed for a moment, then said, just as cautiously, "Well, yes, if you're going to hex my aunt, you shouldn't risk pissing off Ginny before."

"She'd get offended," Draco said a little more confidently, "probably hex me herself. I'd be in no shape to go after your shitfest of a family."

"She would," Harry agreed. "And then you'd condemn me to live in a pink house without you."

Draco had sunk lower into the chair and dropped his eyes to the worn rug. Half a snake slithered along the pattern, pinned in place by a worn spot that bared the warp threads. At Harry's word's he jerked his attention back up and stared at the man. "You don't want me here," he said. "We both know I'm a mistake you're stuck with."

"Well," Harry said, "some wizards are better than others and all."

Draco could feel his mouth pull taut in an attempt not to break down at that. Words were knives and he'd wielded his share of them in the past. He'd cut as deeply as he could and payback always came eventually.

"But you seem to be willing to put up with me, so the least I can do is return the favor."

"You're the Chosen One," Draco said. "I'm -." He was going to say he was nothing, he was a failure and barely not in prison. He was going to say he hadn't been able to be good and decent and he hadn't been able to be a Death Eater. He'd mangled everything, right from the start. "I'm just the guy you rescued," he said instead. The words were flat and inadequate.

"No one else gets it," Harry said. Draco was about to ask what he meant, but there was a raw edge to the words that kept his mouth shut. "Ginny does, to some extent. Hermione tries. Ron tries. But they were never the one the hand of fate landed on and said, _You do it._ "

"I wasn't either." Honesty made him say that.

"Voldemort singled you out," Harry said. He turned to look away. "It's not the same, I know, but maybe I hoped you'd… it's stupid."

"It was awful," Draco said. He didn't want to talk about it. Not now. Probably not ever. "I felt like I couldn't breathe most of the time."

"I know," Harry said. "Me too."

"At least you were the good guy."

Harry let out a huff that sounded sad. "Yeah," he said. "That makes the nightmares so much better."

"Snakes," Draco said. When Harry looked over at him he shrugged. "Mine are usually of snakes." He dreamt snakes eating people while he was forced to watch, snakes eating him, snakes watching other people come toward him, wands drawn, lips pulled back into rictus grimaces that, somehow, were always the worst part. He hated the dreams.

"I liked snakes as a kid," Harry said. "There was one at the zoo once. He was nice."

Draco had forgotten Harry could talk to the awful things. "Great," he said.

"Another thing Voldemort ruined," Harry said. "Like everything else."

"Not you," Draco said. The words felt too real and he wanted to take them back but it was too late. "He ruined me, he ruined my family, he ruined Hogwarts, but he didn't ruin you."

"I'm pretty ruined," Harry said. "It's just that no one sees it."

Draco stood up at that. Harry was still at the window and he turned to look back out. His shoulders were slender. They had the same Seeker's build, but Harry had never broken, never pointed a wand at an innocent person. He'd probably never even cast a single unforgivable. The idea he saw himself as ruined seemed unbearable. Draco's feet were across the room and his hand on Harry Potter's shoulder before he could talk himself out of it. "Well," he said. "I could probably beat you in a race for the Snitch, but I don't think that quite qualifies as ruined. Loser, maybe."

Harry turned and their faces were so close. Too close. Before Draco could step back and put distance between them Harry asked, "Is that a dare?"

. . . . . . . . . .

 **A/N – Thank you to weirdhunterangel and velvetcovered-brick for beta reading.**


	8. Chapter 8 - Quidditch

"Ginny," Harry yelled up the stairs, and Draco stared at him in perplexed befuddlement. This whole day had been a whirlwind and he was fairly sure his brain had just stopped working.

"What?" she yelled back down.

"Get your broom. Your husband here thinks he can outfly me."

Draco took a nervous step back. He'd been speaking theoretically. He'd been trying to reassure the git that he wasn't ruined as a person because of the war. "I don't have a broom," he said, summoning as much cockiness as he could. "Perhaps you could ask the Ministry to return whatever schoolboy things they haven't shredded in their attempts to prove I was eager to be in bed with Voldemort."

"Backing down?" Harry asked. "Because if you just want to admit I'm the better Seeker…."

"Fuck you," Draco said.

"Promises, promises," Ginny said. Draco's head shot around to see her in the doorway, two brooms in her hand. He could feel the heat burning up through his cheeks and she grinned, obviously pleased to have embarrassed him. "You can use one of ours," she said.

"The real question is where," Harry said. He and Ginny exchanged glances and Draco read what they meant at once. If people saw the hero of the wizarding world engaged in a knock-down, drag out flight with him, they'd assume the worst.

He _accioed_ the broom from Ginny's hands and felt his fingers close around the wooden handle with a little too much eagerness. He missed this. "The Manor," he said. When they both looked at him he said, "Well, I hardly think it's unreasonable of me to invite my wife to my childhood home and fly with her."

"Making me the third wheel," Harry said.

"You said it," Draco said.

Ginny laughed. It made her nose crinkle and her eyes squint a bit. When she was older she'd have lines around her eyes from that and for a brief moment Draco felt a surge of warmth that he'd see that. He'd see her go from a woman still barely not a girl, once who could laugh despite it all, to someone grown with joy etched onto her face. Than Harry put an arm around her and pulled her close for a kiss and that woke him up.

He knew who the third wheel was in this house and it wasn't Harry Potter.

"We should owl my mother," Draco said as the couple broke apart. He had to watch Ginny brush her nose against Harry's. He had to watch Harry smile at Ginny as if she were the sun shining on his life. He couldn't bear it.

"Why?" Harry asked.

Ginny hit him on the arm. "So she knows we're coming, idiot brain," she said. "So she can be a hostess. So she's prepared to put on a good act for her Ministry spy."

"Oh," Harry rubbed the spot she'd hit. "You're right."

"He says as if it's a surprise," Ginny said. She was already searching through a drawer for a sheet of parchment and she scribbled off a note. Draco opened his mouth to warn her it would get read, whatever it was, then pressed his lips shut. She'd survived the same year with the Carrows that he had. She knew how to guard her words when she had to. Within 30 awkward minutes, the owl had returned. His mother would be delighted to have them come over and fly, and looked forward to seeing Mr. Potter again. She'd have refreshments ready for them on the back veranda for after, no need to come inside and say hullo before hand. Just start your game.

When they apparated to the Manor, that's exactly what they did. Draco paused to look back the house where he'd grown up, where he'd spent all his Christmases, where he'd seen men tortured by his own hand. A curtain in an upstairs window shifted.

"You coming?" Harry asked, "or do you plan to admire the architecture all day?"

"It's good architecture," Draco said, but he pointed the broom he was borrowing into the air. "Let's go."

Ginny released the Snitch. "First person to catch it kisses the loser of her – or his – choosing," she said with a grin that dared either man to object. Draco supposed he should have known that she wouldn't have settled for being the dutiful girlfriend watching from the sidelines and he sprang into the air, already behind her. Already losing.

That thought disappeared into the joy of flight. The ground dropped away beneath him and the wind stung his eyes. None of them had bothered to put on any of the gear you'd wear for a real match and if they didn't need protection from Bludgers the air was just as biting, the cold just as cruel. He didn't care, though. Not when a flash of gold flirted with him then danced up and away too quickly to follow.

He darted after it, his eyes stinging from the tears the wind stole. It flew left, then right, then dropped down to the ground as quickly as it could and he plunged down after it. Ginny was swooping in from one side. He could see her out of the corner of his eye. She moved in and out of his vision with flashes of red as she swung herself around, trying to cut him off. He didn't see Harry until a body slammed into him from behind, knocking him off course. He had to fight to stay in control and when he'd wrestled the broom back into compliance with his will, the Snitch had disappeared again.

He pulled his broom alongside Harry's. He hadn't been able to grab the Snitch either. Knocking Draco aside had destabilized him almost as much, though not so much he hadn't stopped to hover and watch Draco struggle.

"Cheater," Draco said. He was breathing heavily and the word came out more as a pant.

"I'm just clumsy," Harry said with a disingenuous grin. "Sorry."

"The day you're clumsy on a broom is the day Pygmy Puffs fly," Draco said with narrowed eyes.

"A compliment?" Harry asked. "You're slipping." The he jerked himself away and soared through the air. The broom seemed like an extension of himself. He didn't seem to need to steer it. He barely held on. Draco let himself float for a minute and admired Harry's seemingly effortless athleticism. He needed to catch his breath, after all, and the Snitch was nowhere in sight. Harry was just showing off as he pointed himself at the ground, pulled back up in a roll, then turned to face Draco with a mocking tilt to his head. Draco spread his hands in pretend confusion.

Neither of them noticed Ginny until it was too late. She'd been circling above them in slow, lazy loops, and every time she passed by a particular tree Draco had caught a glimpse of her. He and Harry had been alternating between hovering and doing increasingly elaborate feints as she flew. They'd dive and roll and corkscrew through the air, each time pulling up to check if the other had been watching and the whole time Ginny kept up her steady pattern until Draco realized he hadn't seen her for a bit. At least three of her passes should have gone by and he hadn't spotted her.

"Shite," he said out loud, and twisted on his broom. She was skimming over a flower bed, Snitch just ahead of her. He pointed at her and Harry took after her. He could fly. He could really fly. He raced through the air and Draco had to admit it hadn't been favoritism that had put him on the Hogwarts House team at eleven but Draco was no slouch himself and he'd almost caught up when the Snitch seemed to pause, or perhaps Ginny put on a burst of speed, and she had the tiny golden ball, wings aflutter, in her hand.

She came to rest on the lawn. "I think I win," she said.

Harry landed next to her first. He looked pleased and annoyed and proud of her and irritated with himself all at once. It was a stew of expressions and Draco wouldn't have been able to interpret half of it if he hadn't spent so many years just staring at him. It also helped that he felt much of the same confusing tumult himself. Ginny was brilliant. She'd just outflown both of them and her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone. True, that was because the wind had made all their eyes water. Harry's eyes had the same glittering sparkle to them. But Ginny looked alive and beautiful and Draco felt something in his soul soar that she was just so good.

He'd also failed to one-up Harry Potter _again_ , thanks to her, and a lifetime of bitter rivalry threatened to wash away all the happiness seeing the glee on Ginny's face brought him. Then Harry asked, "Do I get a kiss from the winner?" and it got worse.

Ginny threw a hand around his neck and pressed her lips into his. Draco looked down at his feet. Blades of grass bent under the toes of his shoes, and the end of his broomstick had crushed a three-leaf-clover so only one sad leaf peaked out. He waited for them to be done, his whole mind so focused on the greenery that he missed Ginny coming over and poking him with one finger until she was already there. She prodded and he let out a sigh. "I'm sure my mother has tea ready," he said. "And biscuits if you like."

"I didn't only beat Harry," she said.

"What?" Draco didn't follow her.

"If the loser has to give the winner a kiss," she said. "You owe me."

He took a panicked step backward. She followed him, and held the Snitch up for him to see. "I caught it," she said unnecessarily. "I want my prize."

Draco looked over at Harry in a panic. This was not how this was supposed to go. Things just didn't play out this way. She was either making fun, or Harry was gearing up to wallop him. Harry just spread his hands and, if Draco didn't know such a thing was impossible, smirked at him. How _dare_ that bastard just stand there and smirk. It would serve him right if he did kiss her. Draco could hear all the pronouns getting mixed up in his head as his thoughts raced but he didn't care. If Harry Potter was going to be like that, he'd show him.

He dropped the broom he was still holding onto and pulled Ginny Weasley against him. She was so tiny. He'd forgotten that since their last kiss. She was tiny and sweet and perfect. He could smell the sweat of their flight on her skin and her hair smelled of the air and he pushed his mouth against hers with more force than skill, driven more by spite than desire.

He froze once her lips were on his. If it had been up to him the kiss probably would have ended there, just a peck followed by a graceless fumble for his broom and history's most awkward round of tea and biscuits. Ginny, however, wound a hand along the back of his neck and then up through his hair. Her fingers caught in the wind-swept tangles and she tugged a bit which should have hurt but instead made him pull her closer and groan a bit as she opened her mouth.

The sane part of his brain told him this was the dumbest thing he'd done in a lifetime of idiotic choices. Sure, they were married, but that had been an accident. It was an inconvenience they would get straightened out. She loved Harry Potter, who was standing right there, watching all of this. Draco waited for the fist or the curse or the shove but somehow the kiss went on and he'd curled his fingers into her back and was holding on. He never wanted to let go. He never wanted to kiss anyone else.

Except –

He stopped that thought at once, so shocked by it he stepped away from the girl in his arms. His eyes flew to Harry, who swallowed hard when he met Draco's glance and shifted so he hunched forward a little. Draco squinted. He knew that awkward shift, where you tried to create a little more room in your trousers to hide the evidence of your…

That wasn't possible.

He looked back at Ginny who had the temerity to look smug. "This," she said, "has worked out far better than I could have ever planned."

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Draco said because the obvious possibility was, well, impossible.

She tossed him the Snitch. "Let's go get something to drink," she said. "After all that, I could use some lemonade."

She strolled up the lawn toward the Manor as if it belonged to her, Harry and Draco behind her, both carefully not looking at one another. Draco wanted a drink too. He just didn't think lemonade would be strong enough.

. . . . . . . . .

 **A/N - Thank you so much to slytherinxbadxgirl for beta reading. She is a gift.**


	9. Chapter 9 - Lemonade

Narcissa had lemonade out and waiting for them on the patio. The Auror in residence was making herself scarce, though Draco had no illusions that meant they weren't being spied on. Still, it made the gathering more pleasant and he sat at the table and sipped from his drink and tried to make idle chit chat.

Harry Potter seemed a little in awe of the place. He kept glancing up at the soaring walls as if he couldn't quite believe it. "Better than the last time you were here?" Draco asked at last. The way Harry was goggling at the French doors made him uncomfortable. It made him want to make snide comments about closets and Muggles because being cruel was what he did when he felt out of place and they'd just spent a game maybe almost flirting. Maybe. Though of course he was imagining things. He slouched and took a sip from his glass.

"Yeah," Harry said, looking away from the endless small glass panes, each with a translucent reflection of the four of them at their table. "That thing with the Snatchers made my last visit a bit lousy."

Draco sank lower in his chair. He'd been mistaken in what he thought he'd seen because of course he had. And even if he'd understood Harry Potter's little hunch, some people were just voyeurs. God knew he'd seen enough of that with the Death Eaters to harbor no illusions about the range of people's perversions. Just because Harry liked seeing his girlfriend kiss another man didn't mean anything. It wasn't about _him._

Nothing ever was.

"Yes," said Narcissa primly. "The Snatcher incident was a bit unpleasant."

"All worked out," Harry said.

"Which is what matters." Narcissa poured a bit more lemonade from the pitcher into her glass. It hadn't been empty and the movement looked uncomfortable, as if she were searching for something to do with her hands. She didn't drink when she was done, just folded those hands in her lap. "I understand your Muggle family is well?"

Draco flashed a startled look at her. Harry stiffened next to him, and even unflappable Ginny frowned. "Not so well, then?" Narcissa asked.

"Too well," Draco muttered. Even if Harry didn't want him, it wasn't as if he couldn't still be outraged the man had had a horrible childhood. He was just being sympathetic to a man who'd saved him from prison. Sympathetic to a friend. Nothing more. "Bastards," he added. It was no stretch to think of Muggles as scum. He'd heard variations on that line his whole life.

Harry let out a tiny exhale and Draco slid a foot across the floor silently until the toe of his flying boot rested against Harry's instep. He was just reassuring a friend. Harry closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them his face was a mask. "We aren't close," he said, "but I think they are unharmed."

"How are your family," Ginny asked Narcissa. "Your sister recovering after the war?"

Draco knew he shouldn't cheer her on for that jab, but Harry's shoulders were still hunched together and his knuckles were white around the lemonade glass. "I keep meaning to introduce myself to Aunt Andromeda," he said. "Family is what matters most, isn't it Mum?"

"It is," she agreed. She frowned a bit, then smoothed her face out as wrinkles appeared. "Family is often so complicated."

"I'm sure your relationship with your sister is very complicated," Ginny said, giving the slightest bit of contemptuous emphasis to the final word.

Narcissa smiled wanly. "Well, yes," she said. "My parents forbid contact. Something I would never do."

"Bully for you," Harry said.

"But I was thinking more of Draco's great grandmother," Narcissa went on as if Harry hadn't interrupted. "Her portrait is up on the fourth floor and I walked past it just this morning. Lovely woman."

"Fascinating," Harry said. Sarcasm seemed to be where he went when he was on edge.

"She married a Malfoy – "

"Why her portrait would be here, I suppose," Ginny said.

" – and they had a good friend who lived with them all their lives. A Selwyn I think, though his last name wasn't on the portrait plaque."

Draco's glass was halfway to his mouth when he heard that. He set it down and looked out over the expanse of lawn. It was green and perfect. What magic couldn't do, a dedicated gardening staff could. Malfoys never did anything by halves. Things they did became the fashion. They were the leaders of the upper crust in a way the inbred Blacks only dreamt of being, in ways the impoverished Weasleys had no hope of achieving. "A good friend," he said. Did that mean what he thought it did?

"Just think," Narcissa said. "You might be related to the Selwyns."

Ginny set her lemonade down and leaned back in her seat. "Really?" she asked.

"Oh yes," Narcissa said. "Of course, people were far more willing to live and let live in those days. Discretion was important as, of course, was minding your own concerns. You simply did not ask about other people's lives. Today, alas, everyone wants to know the minuscule details of everyone's dirty laundry."

"I'm used to being in the papers," Harry said sourly.

Narcissa gave him a pitying look. Draco assumed at first she was sympathetic, or at least contemptuous of, his endless appearances in the gossip columns. From their school days, Harry Potter hadn't been able to breathe without _The Daily Prophet_ reporting on it. God knew, he'd helped with that. It was the speculative look on Ginny's face that made him realize he wasn't quite keeping up.

"Mother," Draco said slowly. "Are you saying great-grandmother Malfoy was in some kind of ménage-a-trois?"

"Oh, people used to do all sorts of things," Narcissa said, deftly avoiding answering the question. "I've been cleaning out and I found quite a cache of diaries. Most of them are rather dull, of course. 'Had to speak to the elves about the butter again,' or 'Ordered five yards of the new fabric' but every once in a while, included as though it were no more remarkable than the price of dairy, you find, 'Sarah and her husbands coming over for dinner Thursday so must remember to have Claudius slaughter a lamb.'"

"Husbands," Ginny said.

"Quite," Narcissa said. "Would anyone like some more lemonade? I'm going to go fetch some more biscuits but I'd be happy to get another pitcher if any of you would like some?"

She stood with her eyebrows raised into a look of patently false inquiry and, when Draco waved her off, she slid through the doors of the terrace, into the Manor, and disappeared.

She'd never fetched a tray of biscuits in all the time he'd known her. That she knew where the kitchens were wasn't exactly a surprise – you could hardly not know the layout of your own home – but he would be surprised if she'd ever spent more than ten minutes in the room.

"How long do you think that will take?" Harry asked.

Ginny gave him a look that suggested he was the most aggravating man to ever cross her path.

"What?" he asked. "What am I missing?"

Draco ignored that. Harry Potter's peculiar ability to notice tiny details about one thing while missing another entirely was not unknown to him. "Have the last biscuit," he said. "Potter."

Ginny smiled at them both. It was a look that would send any sensible man running for the proverbial hills. It was an almost feral smile, and one that was delighted with itself. She planted her elbows on the table, a movement so deliberately rude Draco twitched, and rested her chin on her hands. "Your mother is a delight," she said. "We really need to get her and my mum together one of these days."

The idea of that going anything other than utterly poorly made Draco shake his head. "I think," he began.

"No," Ginny said. She pointed a finger at him. "You don't. You react."

"That's not fair," Harry said.

"Do you think we should have a public wedding," Ginny asked.

"We're already married," Draco pointed out. He was a bit miffed about her comment he didn't think. "I think what we're trying to do is get divorced so you and Chosen One over here can get married without having me thrown in prison." Or her, either. The Ministry could be a bit difficult about fraud these days and he'd do anything to keep her from getting punished for trying to save him.

"No," she said. She pushed her tongue into the side of her mouth and though he knew she was just thinking it took his mind to places she surely didn't intend it to go.

"Your girlfriend is difficult," Draco informed Harry, mostly because saying _Your girlfriend is making me think about sex while I'm sitting on my own back porch, my mother sure to come back any minute_ seemed like a bad idea.

"She's your wife," Harry said.

Speaking of another person who made him think about sex.

"You know," Draco said. "Maybe we should just go home." He made a show of rubbing at the injuries he'd gotten in detention though, in truth, even a few days on the potions Harry had supplied had mostly cured him. What twinges remained certainly hadn't slowed his flying down. "I think I might have -."

"Yeah." Ginny stood up. "Home sounds good. I could kiss it and make it better."

Draco supposed he should have been expecting something like that. He looked at Harry but Harry had become fascinated by the grape shears. He was opening and closing them as though he'd never seen anything quite so interesting. Honestly, sometimes it was as if he'd been raised in a barn. Who didn't know what grape shears were?

"Maybe," Draco began.

Ginny patted him on the chest. "Yes," she said, before he could figure out what he'd been going to say after that drawn out maybe. "Play hard to get. It makes you cuter."

Harry swallowed a snicker but when she smiled at him he flushed. It made the scar on his forehead stand out. Looking at the famous lightning flash emblazoned on Potter's head made Draco think of the scars that ran across his chest. Ginny must have seen the way his expression went from outraged and embarrassed, like that of a cat who'd been caught missing the leap to the counter, to something much darker. Sadder. Lost again.

"Draco?" she asked, all humor gone.

"I think I need to lie down," he said. He avoided brushing up against Harry Potter as they apparated back to Harry Potter's flat in silence. He climbed the stairs in silence, and sat on his bed without speaking. He watched the sun move across the floor. It went through one of the wide boards, then a second, and then Ginny was pushing the door open. She sat next to him without asking.

"Harry wants to fuck you," she said.

Draco had no idea how to respond to that.

"And I'm guessing the feeling is mutual."

"It's not," he said.

"Did you know people blink more when they lie?" she asked.

He buried his face in his hands and tried to count to fifty. It had been a trick he'd used during Death Eater meetings in the Manor, and then again in prison when the people who'd eaten at his mother's table took to beating him up. He could hear his breath hitch and feel his shoulders shake and none of this was going the way he had expected it to.

"I did not know that," he said at last.

She laced her fingers through his. "This could be easy," she said. "All you have to do it let it."

"I don't know how," he said.

"Let me show you."

He turned his face to hers. The freckles that were stars on her arms were galaxies across her cheeks. She'd saved him. He'd thought once he could love her for that alone. Maybe he was making this harder than it had to be. It wouldn't be the first time he'd overthought something.

She tasted of lemonade. Tart and sweet and more than he'd ever had the right to hope for. When he pulled away he searched her eyes, looking for the trick. It wasn't there. "Let me love you," she said softly. "Let us both love you."

"I'll try," he said. His arm burned where the Mark was, and something echoed that in the corners of his eyes. "I'll try," he said again. He brushed his lips against the edge of her ear and, because he was still a prat and a selfish arsehole, he added one more thing before he returned his attention to her mouth. "The first kid is mine, though."


	10. Chapter 10 - Epilogue

**_Epilogue_**

And so, in a span of time that passed not so quickly as to seem unbelievable or so slowly as to annoy Narcissa, both Harry and Draco began to trust that the other was not just attractive but attracted. Not just interesting but interested. From there, it didn't take long for each to begin to notice the other's good qualities extended past hair and eyes to a clever wit and a good heart. Draco knew Harry was the sort who would never abandon anyone. Harry was startled to discover the depths of Draco's personal loyalties. Draco would never be a man who cared for the world in the abstract but when he did love he did so without reservation.

From appreciation they moved to affection and from affection to love so naturally they didn't notice when that love began. Ginny might have, but she kept her own counsel until the day Harry told her he was tired of being just the boyfriend and wanted to get married. She might have said something that sounded a bit like, "Took you long enough," or, perhaps, "Told you so," but it would be unkind to reveal anything like that and so it shall remain unknown. Implied. Suggested.

But you, gentle reader, are not a fool and you can read between the lines.

The wedding was the sort of scandal people like best. It had rich people and famous people and heroes and villains and beautiful dresses and it filled the society pages and gossip columns for weeks. Even the announcement spawned excitement. People wrote letters to the _Prophet_ gushing about how love conquered all things. People wrote letters that Harry and Ginny had been tricked by a worthless, cowardly Death Eater and needed saving. Some of them sent those letters to Grimmauld Place. Draco opened one and spent the rest of the day in what was still technically his room in the midst of a panic attack. His stomach churned, he felt like he might throw up, and he could feel his heart race as if he were under the same sort of physical attack he'd endured at the hands of Voldemort and his followers.

"No redemption for the likes of me," he said with as much bravado as he could muster when Ginny decided she'd had enough and used a spell that might have been illegal to let herself into his room. Draco waved the parchment at her before reading a bit of it aloud.

 _Malfoys only kiss should be a Dementor. I am disgusted by the constang glorification of a racist monster in the Prophet, just because he is hot. Their lookism is disgusting too. 'How can he be evil? he is so handsome' is baically their Slogan._

Ginny plucked the sheet from his hand and looked it over. "Well," she said. "Do you want me to dress up as a dementor? A bit odd, but if that's your fantasy I don't mind."

Draco goggled at her. That wasn't the response he had expected, nor was the exasperated roll of her eyes. "You were a child," she said. She touched the tip of her wand to the letter and it began to burn in her hand. Red crept along the edge, turning to black and then grey that crumbled to the floor.

"So were you," he said.

She watched the paper burn and, as it all became dust, said softly, "If my family had been the knife Voldemort held to my throat, I would have done the same."

"I doubt it," Draco said.

She brushed her hands off and stood up. "Be that as it may," she said, "Harry has opinions about the food we should serve at the reception and the caterers your mother hired are here doing a tasting and I need you to come downstairs and argue about it."

Draco's sneer didn't even make it all the way to half-hearted but he managed a, "Since when does Potter know anything about food?" as he followed her out of his room and back into the rest of the house.

If the engagement and the wedding spawned articles and opinions and more than one howler, the marriage itself proved to be about as unexciting as such things usually are. Ginny became a regular at the furniture store, Draco became a regular at dinners with her family, and Harry, rather unexpectedly, became a regular at Malfoy Manor. Narcissa remembered his parents in the casual way that one remembers all sorts of school chums and the idea that he had been kept from family was sufficiently horrifying to her that she found an entire box of Hogwarts memorabilia and sat with him as he picked out old photographs that included either James or Lily, even if they tended to be off in background corners.

James had, as it turned out, a rather bad habit of positioning himself behind Slytherin Quidditch team photographs while making grotesque faces at the camera. Harry became the proud owner of half a dozen pictures of his father and Sirius behaving badly. Ginny framed them and hung them about. Draco pretended to scowl whenever he saw them but spent a whole weekend looking through the attics of Malfoy Manor to see if there were any more. There weren't, but when Harry asked Ginny where 'that worthless git we married' had gone – and she told him – he spent the afternoon scrubbing at an old closet so he could shove his feelings into work and blame the dust for any wetness in his eyes.

The first baby was a girl. She came out with a pointed nose and a pointed chin and bright green eyes and Ginny refused to permit any sort of paternity testing. Draco called her Lily and Harry called her My Lily and Narcissa and Molly descended upon the townhouse with opinions and packages and more yarn than Draco had ever seen because it seemed that every baby must have hand-knit jumpers.

"Mother." Draco cornered Narcissa in the kitchen one morning when Lily was five weeks old. She was furiously clacking needles and squinting at a pattern in a magazine. "Since when do you knit?"

"I am a complex person," she said, sniffing archly and looking down her long nose at him. "I have many interests of which you are unaware."

He doubted that was true. He strongly suspected this was the newest manifestation of a long-standing interest in being better than the Weasley clan in every possible competition. Since so far being more generous, more gracious, and more accommodating than the other woman was one of their points of rivalry, he decided it was best to play dumb and he nodded and made her a cup of tea.

The second baby – Scorpius - was a boy who had nearly white hair that always looked like it needed a good combing. He also needed glasses far younger than Draco had known a child could need glasses. "This is your fault," he said to Harry as they stood trying to fit glasses on a very squirmy boy. "Malfoys have perfect vision."

Harry picked up a lock of that white hair and looked at it. "My fault?" he asked. "When he has _this_?"

The third baby – Alba - was a girl with red hair, green eyes, and a love of luxury that had to have come straight from Draco. She marched through the nursery like the world was hers from the moment she could walk. She had tantrums that lasted so long the third nanny Narcissa had insisted on hiring said, as she was walking out the door, "You have what is known as a difficult child. Good luck."

Alba ran and she laughed and she grabbed the most expensive things off the shelf in any shop they took her to. After one too many apologies and offers to pay for the damages, they stopped taking Alba Eileen Potter-Malfoy anywhere where things could be broken. They got her a broom instead and told her older siblings to keep her from falling off and thanked all the gods that wizarding medical arts were superb.

The Mediwitch knew them very well.

The receptionist at St. Mungo's just took to waving them up the stairs without looking up from her copy of _Witch Weekly_.

Oliver Wood started coming around a lot with his own child in tow. "They'll be the best Gryffindor team Hogwarts has ever seen," he said, his eyes gleaming. "Look at her."

Draco looked at her. Alba was too high, flying too fast, and probably on a collision course with a stone wall that would end the day's party. The Wood boy could keep up with her, albeit barely. He darted down and tried to get around and she pointed her broom straight up to the sky and shot out of reach. Lily and Scorp were following behind the pair, not bothering to try to slow them down. There wasn't any point. It wasn't as if Alba listened to warnings. "You assume she'll be sorted to Gryffindor," he said.

Oliver's expression was that of a man who had just been offered such an absurd statement he didn't know how to respond. Draco took a sip from his cocktail and eyed his younger daughter. He didn't presume to guess how Lily would get Sorted, or Scorpius, but he had to admit Alba seemed destined for the lions. "Maybe your boy will end up in Slytherin," he said. "They could use a strong flyer."

Oliver almost choked on his drink.

"I mean, you aren't still mired in adolescent House rivalry, are you?" Draco asked.

Ginny laughed and set her hand on her Oliver's arm and, with a sigh, he admitted that, no, he was not. Any House would be fine.

As long as his son was on the Quidditch team.

That was a sentiment Draco fully understood, as did Harry, and they all spent the rest of the afternoon in complete sympathy with one another. Many people might have considered their lives dull. They didn't live up to the hopes and dreams of the gossip hungry readers of the _Prophet._ None of them became politically influential. None of them became any more famous than they had been at seventeen. However, after childhoods spent in thrall to the schemes of men who hungered after power, they had learned to be happy with simple things and none of them longed for more.

. . . . . . . . .

 **A/N – Many thanks to you, readers, for following along on this little fic. I hope the journey has been reasonably enjoyable.**

 **Thank you to irishflute, who generously alpha and beta read this chapter for me. She is a gem.**

 **Many thanks also to the 'Fangirl' troll for the hate mail. I tried to maintain the feeling of over the top ranting as much as possible, though I had to adapt a little bit to fit the needs of the narrative. You can see the original in the reviews of chapter 9. Your help, good sir, was much appreciated.**


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